When discussing this state of affairs, however, Wolf seems to give way to common distractions. The failures he describes are largely those of elites, who have, he argues compellingly, engendered a dangerous popular distrust of the institutions essential to democratic capitalism. He finds other evidence of failure in the financial crisis of 2008, the Great Recession that followed it, the mismanagement of globalization and a parallel mismanagement of immigration, ineptitude during the Covid pandemic, and more. Wolf documents growing income and wealth inequalities as both symptoms and causes of these imbalances.
The second part of the book investigates what has in recent years upset this crucial balance. His stress on this essential balance reappears throughout the book, which is why that famous expression from the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, “nothing in excess,” appears on the book’s facing page and reappears to good effect several times in the text. That balance has, after all, created unprecedented wealth, individual liberties, and room for human flourishing. Wolf shows how market capitalism helped create representative democracy and how the delicate balance between the two, what he refers to as a “symbiotic pair,” is worth nurturing and protecting. The first and best dissects the relationship between market capitalism and liberal democracy. The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism has four parts. As with any effort this wide-ranging and ambitious, Wolf’s book has its weaknesses-in some cases where it is most interesting-but overall, it more than compensates. Thoughtful, insightful, if sometimes uneven, it deserves a careful read from anyone with even a casual interest in economics, politics, foreign affairs, political philosophy, or any of the issues that touch on today’s headlines.
Martin Wolf’s ambitious book ranges widely across the political-economic horizon. The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, by Martin Wolf (Penguin Press, 496 pp., $30)
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